Roger on Running: The Big Issues of the 2010 Fall Marathon Season

Pheidippides drops dead and other dramas

Fifty-some Pheidippideses announced victory and dropped dead in Athens on October 31. The one and only Haile Gebrselassie dropped out and announced retirement in New York seven days later (recent reports now reveal the opposite). For curtain-line dramas, that was quite a week.

It climaxed a fall road season that produced, like the Battle of Marathon 2,500 years ago, unexpected outcomes. Chicago’s envied gang of five sub-2:06 men whittled down to a two-man gun fight. A Russian who was a novice a year ago became Tsarina of the world marathon. New York’s big show gave us faltering favorites, watchful packs and sluggish times, but scooped the biggest mass media attention running has ever had for a 5:40:51 marathon by a survivor from the bottom of a Chilean mine. And in the race of the races for the season’s fastest men’s time, the winner was … wait for it … Frankfurt.

Let me take the issues of the season as they unfolded. First, who is the true world leader among the men? Olympic champion Sammy Wanjiru unleashed an astounding last 600m to win (2:06:24) that Bank of America Chicago Marathon dust-up on October 10 with Tsegaye Kebede, this year’s Virgin London Marathon winner. They ended as one and two on top of the World Marathon Majors table for 2009-10.

End of discussion? No, because in another part of the forest, at the real,- Berlin Marathon on September 26, Patrick Makau ran much faster, 2:05:08, despite sploshing through pouring rain and swirling surface water. That’s the same Makau (sometimes Patrick Makau Musyoki) who won the Fortis Rotterdam Marathon in April in 2:04:48, which stands so far as the fastest marathon of 2010, and makes him fourth fastest of all time. So that’s two Makau wins this year faster than Wanjiru or Kedebe’s best. Unlike both of them, he was unbeaten, having to shake a stubborn Geoffrey Mutai on both occasions (2:04:55/2:05:10). Fastest man of the fall was Wilson Kipsang, who trains with Makau in Iten, and won Frankfurt (October 31) in 2:04:57. So, let’s just say Wanjiru’s 2010 crown is looking hollow.

By contrast, Liliya Shobukhova purged strong fields at London and Chicago in the year’s two best times, 2:22:00 and her impeccably executed 2:20:25 at Chicago. Best of the rest is Atsede Baysa’s 2:22:03 at Paris in the spring. Irina Mikitenko had injury problems. No Japanese figured. Among Americans, Shalane Flanagan had an encouraging debut at the ING New York City Marathon, but her 2:28:40 for second place is way slower than Desiree Davila’s 2:26:20 at Chicago and Magdalena Lewy Boulet’s 2:26:22 at Rotterdam in April. That’s something that was unmentioned in the Flanagan frenzy at New York.